A rant about ‘Appropriation’
So listening to a Real Play podcast for Pathfinder (not
saying whom, not calling them out specifically) and in the height of 2020/2021
they went on the cultural sensitivity bit.
It kind of annoyed me, especially as at least two of them are self-professed
historians. Two of their tangents went off on really annoyed me, in part
because their hairshirts made no sense to me.
The discussion of the Mwangi Adventure Path is the first I’ll
address. They had a discussion of the
culture of the Mwangi and how they got ‘Diverse voices’ to write it, to represent
the culture. Um, ignoring the fact that you can’t get Pathfinder dwarves to
write the dwarf sections, the blog gives a diverse
set of voices, but no more diverse than any other book. Some claim African Heritage, but none were
born in Africa. Using the ‘diversity’
guideline, Elon Musk is more qualified to write about African culture and
upbringing.
This doesn’t even count that Africa isn’t some homogeneous group
of people because the color of their skin is a darker hue. Ethiopian culture is different than Zulu, and
both are different than Senegal. We’ll
ignore Netflix’s belief that Cleopatra was black as well. Now Pathfinder does a fairly good job of this
even in first edition, Geb, Nex, the tribes in the ‘Mwangi’ jungle, etc. Now we’re all gamers, stepping into other
shoes, but for some reason we have to be ‘careful’ to respect Mwangi culture. I’d assume they’d gnash their respective
teeth on playing Tian characters.
I find this darkly humorous (yes, pun intended); most
players casually treat Europe as the same homogeneous group. No one worries about offending the people of
Scandanavia when they roll up a Ulfen Skald. Or lament the bad Russian accents
for Irrisen characters, or bad Italian accents for Cheliax, etc. Do players feel they aren’t ‘white enough’ to
play an Ulfen? That’s ignoring the
absurdity of playing a non-human. Do you
have to be “This tall” to play a halfling?
The other grumble I have is a well tread one, Agents of
Edgewatch. While Paizo put on their
sensitivity glasses and muttered
the platitudes of “Black Lies Matter” The fact remains that the hypocrisy
of Paizo is hilarious. They published,
prior to this, an AP where the protagonists were Evil (Hell’s Vengeance),
Pirates (Skull and Shackles) Admittedly Sanctioned Tomb Robbers (Mummy’s Mask) and
outsiders conquering lands (Kingmaker) Let’s
not get into some of the less than good actions you have to take in the others
APs (Freeing Baba Yaga, deceit, espionage, etc) and that the core conceit of
the game is killing people and taking their stuff. But despite that, making the heroes of one AP
police officers was a step too far. The
podcasters have played Skull and Shackles and Mummy’s Mask yet they gnash their
teeth that the good guys might be police officers.
Side note, did Paizo make a statement and donate money to Uncle
Hugo’s? If they did, I missed it.
Maybe they will call a pirate, a tomb raider, or a
Pathfinder (but I repeat myself) next time they’re faced with a situation where
a police officer is needed.
Virtue signalers forget… This is a game. Playing bad
guys or even questionably good guys doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Unless you want to argue all GMs are as evil
as the NPCs they portray. But if you’re
clamoring to play Hell’s Vengeance; if your favorite nation is Nidal; and then
if you argue that playing police officers is a bridge too far, then really,
what does that say about you as a person?
